Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security [electronic resource] /
Drake, D.author.
Drawing on research in men's long-term, maximum-security prisons, this book examines three interconnected problems: the tendency of the prison to obscure other social problems and conceal its own failings, the pursuit of greater levels of human security through repressive and violent means and the persistence of the belief in the problem of 'evil'.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Contents; List of Tables and Figures; Acknowledgements; 1 Demythologising the Prison and its Uses; Introduction; The (purported) purposes and (hidden) functions of the prison; The quest for security; The superficiality of evil; Puncturing the myths: the importance of exposing ideologies; Overview of the chapters; 2 The Growing Hegemony of Imprisonment; Introduction; The trend towards penal convergence; Questioning the 'newness' of punitiveness; Political economy and social determinants of prison use; The ideological architecture of imprisonment
Common features within ideologies of imprisonmentExploring global justifications of imprisonment; Prisons and insecurity; Conclusion; 3 Establishing Long-Term, Maximum-Security Imprisonment in England; Introduction; The bulky machinery of prisons and criminal justice; Ideological and historical underpinnings of English maximum-security prisons; The values of the liberal elite; The abolition of the death penalty; Establishing maximum-security prisons; The Mountbatten Report; The Radzinowicz Report; Paternalistic liberalism; Dispersal prisons in practice 1968-94; Problems of order and control
Enter law-and-order politicsConclusion; 4 A State of Security in Maximum-Security Prisons; Introduction; A reorientation of penal thinking and practice; The political context; Key events and policy influences; Dispersal prisons in practice from 1995 onwards; The primary goal of security; Prisoners as enemies within; The ideology of security and its role in harsh justice; Conclusion; 5 Long-Term, Maximum-Security Punishment; Introduction; Foregoing studies of prison life; The subjectivity of assessing experiences of prisons and punishment; Understanding prisoner experiences
Long-term, maximum-security punishmentConstituting punishment; The principle of less eligibility; The loss of liberty; The maintenance of in/security; Uses of power and authority; Condemnation and judgement: the context of rehabilitation; Meaninglessness; Conclusion: a 'suitable amount of pain'?; 6 Constituting Security in the Penal and the Social Realms; Introduction; Security in the penal realm; A chimera of safety and security; The invisibility of coercion in the security regime; The security regime and the art of concealment; Security in the social realm
Crime and security as political projectsThe place of the prison within security agendas and global economic relations; Pursuing a subjective sense of security as a more viable security agenda; Penal severity and the globalising myth of security; Conclusion: rethinking security?; 7 The Duplicity of Criminal Justice, Violent Crime and the Problem with Punishment; Introduction; Duplicity and contradiction in law and criminal justice; The rhetoric of rationality in law and criminal justice; The morality of criminal justice and punishment
Violent crime, the question of evil and the call for vengeance
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Drawing on research in men's long-term, maximum-security prisons, this book examines three interconnected problems: the tendency of the prison to obscure other social problems and conceal its own failings, the pursuit of greater levels of human security through repressive and violent means and the persistence of the belief in the problem of 'evil'.
Criminology.
Corrections.
Punishment.
Crime—Sociological aspects.
Sociology.
Critical criminology.
Criminology and Criminal Justice, general.
Prison and Punishment.
Crime and Society.
Gender Studies.
Critical Criminology.